Ayn Rand on Gun Control

[william.scherk]

Meanwhile . . .

[Selene]

Meanwhile...back in Realville...

http://www.westernjournalism.com/heres-one-girl-who-understands-real-gun-control/

Any parent, any Mom will understand the value of a weapon when they hear about this twelve (12) year old...

A...

[Brant Gaede]

ed

Meanwhile...back in Realville...

http://www.westernjournalism.com/heres-one-girl-who-understands-real-gun-control/

Any parent, any Mom will understand the value of a weapon when they hear about this twelve (12) year old...

A...

I'm glad the guy survived only for the reason his death would have weighed on that girl.

--Brant

[Selene]

Brant:

That is exactly what my girlfriend said. She is a strong Second Amendment lady also.

It does make a lot of sense for her not to have to struggle with taking a life.

A...

[Selene]

Excellent article.

Why the Gun Control Movement Is Doomed

Gary North

Reality Check (Dec. 21, 2012)

I have watched the gun control movement become a major voice against gun ownership over the last 40 years. What has most impressed me is this: this movement has been unsuccessful in disarming Americans. The demand for guns keeps rising.

I have known the leaders of the gun ownership movement. Larry Pratt is the head of the lobbying group, Gun Owners of America. He has held that position for as long as the organization has existed. It began in 1975. The founder of the organization, H. L. "Bill" Richardson, was a state senator in California. I do not recall when I first met him, but it was probably sometime around 1967. I met Pratt no later than 1969, and it may have been earlier. I have watched Gun Owners of America grow into a major sounding board for those who want to preserve Second Amendment freedoms. There are a number of lobbying organizations that promote gun ownership, but Gun Owners of America is generally regarded as hard-core. It does not recommend making political deals with those who would control legal access to firearms.

ENFORCEMENT

Some laws are inherently unenforceable. We know that the laws are unenforceable among urban gang members. Gang members are among the best-armed civilians in the world. Gangs have more firepower than most local police departments. They do not use this firepower against what they would regard as the civilian population. They use the weapons against other gang members.

PARALYSIS AT THE TOP

I realize that a lot of Americans believe that the federal government is ready to take action against gun owners. Rhetoric aside, where is the evidence that the President is actively pursuing any such goal? I think the best indication of Obama's commitment to this is that he has put Joe Biden in charge of the whole operation. The Vice President has no power, and of recent Vice Presidents, Joe Biden is something of a laughingstock. He is no Dick Cheney.

CONCLUSION

Within a decade, it will be possible for people to manufacture handguns inexpensively in their own homes. Even if it takes two decades, it is clear what is going to come. The ability of the government to confiscate handguns is surely limited when somebody can download a free piece of software that will enable him to manufacture a handgun, or the components of a handgun, in the privacy of his own home. The Left is now facing an ideological crisis. Either it bans 3D printers, raising civil rights issues, or else it must give up having any shot at banning guns.

http://www.garynorth.com/public/10461.cfm

A...

[Selene]

Wayne LaPierre just held a press conference wherein he made the following argument that fundamentally closes out the assholes that refuse to see reality.

He said "we protect what we value."

1) We have armed security in our banks protecting our "money;"

2) We have armed security protecting our President;

3) We have armed security protecting our Congress;

However, our most precious possessions, our children, we place in an environment wherein we clearly advertise to the predator, the psychotic and the alienated that they can prey on our most precious possessions without fear of being stopped by armed security.

That, my friends, is insane.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Wayne LaPierre just held a press conference wherein he made the following argument that fundamentally closes out the assholes that refuse to see reality.

He said "we protect what we value."

1) We have armed security in our banks protecting our "money;"

2) We have armed security protecting our President;

3) We have armed security protecting our Congress;

However, our most precious possessions, our children, we place in an environment wherein we clearly advertise to the predator, the psychotic and the alienated that they can prey on our most precious possessions without fear of being stopped by armed security.

That, my friends, is insane.

A...

He's terribly pissing off a lot of anti-gun people. An investment/trading web site I frequent is full of them.

--Brant

[Selene]

By Tom Curry, NBC News national affairs writer

National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre blamed Hollywood, video games music, the courts and more on Friday for creating a culture of violence in the United States.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said at a Washington press event, adding, “With all the money in the federal budget can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?”

LaPierre made his lengthy statement to the press one week after the shooting that killed 20 children and six adults at a school in Newtown, Conn.

Protesters twice interrupted LaPierre, who will appear this Sunday exclusively on NBC's "Meet the Press," holding signs reading "NRA KILLING OUR KIDS," and screaming that the gun rights group has "blood on its hands."

He said that elected officials had no authority to deny Americans the right and the ability to protect themselves and their families from harm.

And he noted that there are millions of active and retired police officers, military veterans, and private security guards – “an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens” – who should devise a protection plan for every school.

“I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation,” he said.

He said that laws that established gun-free school zone have had the effect of telling “every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”

He criticized Congress for not creating a national database of the mentally ill and called for increased federal prosecution of those who illegally possess guns.

LaPierre did not indicate that the NRA would support any additional restrictions on the sale or possession of guns. He ridiculed the idea that “one more gun ban or one more law imposed on peaceful, lawful people will protect us where 20,000 other laws have failed.”

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/21/16069537-nra-blames-media-music-and-more-for-culture-of-violence?lite

[Dglgmut]

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,”

That's a good little soundbite.

[Selene]

More powerful now than ever...

December 21, 2012 at 9:54 am

Survivor of 1991 Shooting Gives Impassioned Testimony Against Gun Control

Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents were having lunch at the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen in 1991 when the Luby’s massacre commenced. The gunman shot 50 people and killed 23, including Hupp’s parents. Hupp later expressed regret about deciding to remove her gun from her purse and lock it in her car lest she risk possibly running afoul of the state’s concealed weapons laws; during the shootings, she reached for her weapon but then remembered that it was “a hundred feet away in my car.” Her father, Al Gratia, tried to rush the gunman and was shot in the chest. As the gunman reloaded, Hupp escaped through a broken window and believed that her mother, Ursula Gratia, was behind her. Actually however, her mother went to her mortally-wounded husband’s aid and was then shot in the head.

This video is Hupp’s classic testimony before Congress which is once again relevant to America’s political debate in the light of the 2012 Connecticut shooting.

Read more: http://conservativevideos.com/2012/12/survivor-of-1991-shooting-gives-impassioned-testimony-against-gun-control/#ixzz2FnUbjPcT

[Selene]

Ted Nugent...I just love his directness and clarity...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tMso12zeYDQ

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is Bill Whittle's comment on the matter.

Bill Whittle is one of the clearest thinking individuals I have heard/seen. And he is a pilot!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

So, Bob, since you respect Bill's ethos, do you believe he would support you "mortman" argument on the US Constitution?

[BaalChatzaf]

So, Bob, since you respect Bill's ethos, do you believe he would support you "mortman" argument on the US Constitution?

I really don't know. It is possible that would could disagree on the matter. I still would respect his integrity and clear thinking.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people* to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

FWIW, my interpretation is that this means individuals may bear arms, and the government can't prevent people in a given area from forming a militia. This was back when we didn't have a standing army. However, the words "well regulated" imply something. Regulated, by whom? It hardly matters today, but still this is an amendment, not a statute. If you want to change it, you need another amendment. Otherwise, what's the use of having a Constitution?

I just lost a long post. I cannot redo it right now. (The BBS software here has a lot of bugs, but MSK is pretty much stuck with what they deliver.) The point is that I have an 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster. "Regulated" means just what you think it does. The Founders did not want random gangs of armed thugs running around, but you cannot have a militia without armed citizens.

However, in our time, we now have the Naitonal Guard as our militias.

[9thdoctor]

I just lost a long post. I cannot redo it right now. (The BBS software here has a lot of bugs, but MSK is pretty much stuck with what they deliver.)

I've had some trouble lately too, particularly with the quote function. Another annoying thing is that if you write out a post first in Word, which is how I typically do it, apostrophes get lost when you cut and paste it in. Also line breaks aren't working right, you've got to switch to HTML to get it right, and that's a pain.

The point is that I have an 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster. "Regulated" means just what you think it does. The Founders did not want random gangs of armed thugs running around, but you cannot have a militia without armed citizens. However, in our time, we now have the Naitonal Guard as our militias.

BTW, a similar but contrasting interpretation is that the founders regarded the existence of militias as a fait accompli, and therefore specified that individuals ("the people") also have the right to bear arms, in effect so they may defend themselves from a militia that's run amok. Either interpretation is consistent with the language of the amendment, while the modern day left-wing rereading, that only militias were meant to bear arms, requires one to dismiss the founders as having been awfully clumsy writers, and the electorate of the 1790's to have been equally bad readers.

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." Richard Henry Lee, 12th President of the Continental Congress

[Selene]

That is also why there is an f_ _ _ ing comma in the f _ _ _ ing amendment!

[George H. Smith]

New York Journal News Publishes Gun Owners' Names In Westchester, Rockland Counties

Ghs

[Roger Bissell]

New York Journal News Publishes Gun Owners' Names In Westchester, Rockland Counties

Ghs

This is a very heinous attempt on the part of the New York Journal News to "expose" and shame gun owners in Westchester and Rockland Counties -- along the lines of the attempts to inhibit prostitution by publishing the names of the "johns" and having the wrath of spouses and community come down on their heads.

However, it seems to me that this will backfire and have unintended (?) consequences. Have any of you seen the recent signs that gun owners post in their years with an arrow pointing to their neighbors, signifying that the neighbors do ~not~ own firearms? The obvious implication/suggestion to would-be burglars is that they should bypass the house with firearms and ply their trade at the neighboring, unarmed houses. Well, the newspaper listing of gun owners may well accomplish the same purpose -- on the reasonable assumption that astute, literate burglars will make such use of the information so thoughtfully (?) provided by the newspaper.

Of course, it's possible (if unlikely) that the newspaper is employing a stealth policy of actually ~supporting~ gun ownership and gun owners, by focusing burglary on the unarmed houses, and by encouraging currently unarmed people to arm themselves and to get in the next, revised version of the list! (Personally, I know that if that were happening in my community, and I were not yet armed, I would RACE to my friendly neighborhood gun dealer and remedy the situation -- and probably even post a sign in my yard!)

But the likely ugly intent of the New York newspaper will probably backfire, in one way or another. This is irresponsible, do-good meddling at its nastiest.

REB

[Selene]

Anyone who registers their rifles, and, or, their handguns is, frankly, a fool.

Remember the Cuban commander in Red Dawn, who, following his protocol, tells his subordinate to go to the gun store and the police precinct and get the names and addresses of all the registered gun owners and proceed directly to each of their houses.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Your doctor, following a standard set of questions, may ask you if you have guns. Something supposedly about safety. No questions about whether you ride motorcycles without a helmet or fly small airplanes in Alaska. Your answer goes into an electronic record.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

I just lost a long post. I cannot redo it right now. (The BBS software here has a lot of bugs, but MSK is pretty much stuck with what they deliver.) The point is that I have an 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster. "Regulated" means just what you think it does. The Founders did not want random gangs of armed thugs running around, but you cannot have a militia without armed citizens.

However, in our time, we now have the Naitonal Guard as our militias.

Well ordered means the militia has a clear command structure and that it drills regularly to maintain skill in deployment and musketry. In any town or county that had a militia its leadership and membership would be public knowledge.

Our reserve units are ancillaries of the standing army. Our Founders would not have like to see us with a standing army.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Anyone who registers their rifles, and, or, their handguns is, frankly, a fool.

Remember the Cuban commander in Red Dawn, who, following his protocol, tells his subordinate to go to the gun store and the police precinct and get the names and addresses of all the registered gun owners and proceed directly to each of their houses.

A...

It was the Russian. The "Cuban" was actually a Nicaraguan, and we had some sympathy for him as a bad guy. He wrote home that he was miserable in the cold, dry Rockes and missed his wife. He argued back against the Russian who was just into reprisals. "Five years ago, I was a revolutionary. You made me a policeman." When Matt (I think) is hauling his wounded and dying brother Jed from the last shootout, the Nicaraguan draws a bead, but does not fire, letting them limp off.

That being all as it may...

I have been giving this a lot of thought these past months and now moreso with Sandy Hooks. One thing about the Killeen Massacre - and I was not here in Texas then - is that now anyway in Texas it is a misdemeanor (only) to carry an unregistered concealed weapon in certain posted places, such as liquor stores. Like many states - including Michigan - open carry is legal.

I read up on the Texas Tower Massacre. There, the perpetrator was a Marine and a UT student. He purposely chose the Tower for its concealment and position. His first victims were an unborn child and its mother - center of mass. He was methodical and accurate. People did run to their cars to get their guns and they did fire back, but it was a police officer who entered the Tower, confronted him, and killed him. (He fended off the police helicopter.) The civilian armed response was ineffectual.

That tragedy and Sandy Hook have some commonalities. For one, he killed his family (mother and wife) first, before killing among the public at large. He chose a defensible position and killed unprotected (soft) targets. That bears on the question of mental competency. These killers seem to be planfully competent, not irrational, berserkers. Without a population of soft targets, after killing their own family members, their options would be narrowed to suicide by police.

Putting armed police in the schools is not a good idea. Allowing teachers (staff) to be armed is better... but I had teachers who had money stolen from their purses. Imagine if they had guns to lose. Then, consider high school. Should an 18-year old be allowed to carry a weapon? Where would that lead?

On my university campus, I had couple of working officers taking classes. They were young, first law enforcement job (police, probation), going to school to move up. They felt uncertain about their status armed on campus. My feeling (feeling; I have no legal advice) is that if you are a sworn officer, wear the weapon. One left it with a friend off campus (bad choice, I felt) and came to school with an empty holster. The other stopped to put his under his car seat, was spotted with a weapon and was confronted by a squad of university police. (Being Black, it took about 45 minutes for them to accept that he was a probation officer with a permit.) Just to say, the gun-free-zone confuses professionals and causes problems.

I do not see an easy solution, except to let everyone have guns, and if you do not have a gun, you wear an armband -- Heinlein's Beyond this Horizon. Nice answer, but it is science fiction. In the real world, I see no change as the anti-gun and pro-gun forces continue to cancel each other out.

As I have said, here in Texas, as an unarmed ("non-commissioned") security officer, in any situation, I am the only one without a gun. I rely on Jedi mind tricks.

When I was in school, I bought two bullet proof backpacks. My wife was outraged at the money I spent -- but when she went to work in Flint, she wore hers.

[Frediano]

Michael:

Re;Then, consider high school. Should an 18-year old be allowed to carry a weapon? Where would that lead?

Should a 16 yr old be allowed to wield a rolling weapon of mass destruction? We see where that leads. I lost four friends in HS; they were drunk, in a car, being chased through the night by cops. (I accidentally wasn't with them that night because I was more sensibly chasing pooty tang.) Went over a railroad overpass bridge, lost control of the car, hit a tree, killed all four of them. They were the local few, 'those kids' who sobered the rest of us up just in time for college. That is what adolecents do; they mostly survive adolescence, becuase not all of them do. The ones I worry about are those who don't have close enough examples of 'those kids.' Being the parents of adolescents is doing your best and hoping your kids don't end us as "those kids." Most of us have stories from our adolexcence about "those kids." It is what shocks the rest of us out of our adolescence.

Local HS parking lot is full of cars. Local streets are full of adolescents driving cars.

Used to be, at least in rural areas, kids -did- take their .22s to schools. They would sit in the cloakrooms until after school, and kids would go plinking on the way home.

Post WWII AMerica, awash in surplus guns. You could mail order them out of the back of magazines. One act of mayhem changed that -- Lee Harvey Oswald. It wasn't rare, fringe school shootings back then.

But something -did- change in America. JFK's AMerica is a useful 50 yr standback.

The number of divorced kids "devastated" (like Adam) by the breakup of his parents. Sure, lots/most by far weather that storm without becoming mass murderers, but we are talinkg about what has changed to drive these fringe few wild at the fringe.

Over-normalization. The DSM has exploded. We are at the point where the ability -- the ability -- to concentrate intensely on complex issues is laebeled a form of autism, becuase is it 'abnormal' --- as in, not 'average.' THe Tribes' process of self-policing it's holy Averagness is pushing those who are just 'a little' different towards the fringes, far from the gooey embrace of the Holy Average, and like white blood cells, the Holy Average polices its turf, constantlyu ont he outlook for outliers. Those who are diagnostically/severely different get a bye, because they're not even in the game. (Like my son, with the genetic deletion.) But God help kids that are only 'a little' different these days. DIversity? What we call diversity is some of the most regimented enforced conformity that mankind has ever seen.

Between those two cultural epidemics, that is plenty to explain what has changed. We have far more stringent gun control than we did 50 yrs ago, and far more school shootings, even though they are still rare, fringe events in a nation of 320 million people. What has changed at the fringe is not the guns in the basement; what has changed is the above.

In Adam's case, consider the alternative universe where those same guns are still in the basement, but Mom and Dad never divorced, and Adam's family was still intact. Adam's father isn't starting a new family with some other woman, and Adam doesn't hate him(and his mother, as well; he shot her in the face, for chrissakes.)

In that alternate universe, do we ever even hear about Newtown, CT and the guns in Adam's basement?

And so, what is the required element in this tragedy? WIth or without the tribal perseveration on over-normalization, and the intense need to drive the Adams of the world to the looney fringe?

regards,

Fred

[Selene]

• December 26, 2012, 6:28 p.m. ET

Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control After a school massacre, the U.K. banned handguns in 1998. A decade later, handgun crime had doubled.

Americans are determined that massacres such as happened in Newtown, Conn., never happen again. But how? Many advocate more effective treatment of mentally-ill people or armed protection in so-called gun-free zones. Many others demand stricter control of firearms.

We aren't alone in facing this problem. Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s. Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred. Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. Their experiences can be instructive.

The results have not been what proponents of the act wanted. Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself.

In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.

What to conclude? Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven't made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres. The two major countries held up as models for the U.S. don't provide much evidence that strict gun laws will solve our problems.

The offense rests...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

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